Stay Off !

Perry’s crew had just finished buffing the wood floors in the lower level so they’re ready for stain and finish. I needed to measure something in the LL storage room and asked Bob if I could go down there in socks. NO! Wear shoes!  Walking across the wood in socks or barefooted will leave footprints (skin oil, warmth, etc.) that will show up when they’re finished. Best to wear clean shoes or shoes w/ booties on them. Or better still – DON”T GO DOWN THERE.

Using straps and a ratchet to pull the boards tight in the rec room. 

 

Sam and Dan removing some of the plywood they just laid down. Easy come easy go doesn’t apply.

José shaping a stone.

José getting the stones perfect.

Checking the color of the shakes against the trim color.

The flooring guys marked places that needed special attention.

A look inside a flex duct that is crimped (towards the bottom of the image on the inside of the bend) and so won’t work well.  To give an idea of the issue, a 100 Cubic Feet per Minute bath fan might only exhaust 27 CFM if it’s having to push through a crimped bit of flex duct. Bends and crimps create static pressure which some fans are not as good at overcoming as others.

The same duct from the outside.

The guys from Nueharth Concrete pouring the ground level of the detached garage. 

Wood floor in the lower level hallway. After initial wood installation they fill open areas of knots with either a dark or medium filler which gets sanded down. Next they work the lighter filler (below) in to the entire floor to fill every joint, hole and indentation. Once sanded (most of the floor below) it’s very smooth and consistent looking. After sanding they’ll buff it and then stain it.

Braden sanding the edges of the sitting room.

 

Beginning installation in the master bedroom. You can see the area that was filled w/ bondo so that the entire floor is perfectly level now.

 

Stain and finish samples. From the left; 2 raw boards, 2 w/ 50% white and 50% neutral and 3 boards with just Bona Mega finish (no stain). Two of many samples we’ve looked at.

 

The main level is planned to be French Oak rather than the American White Oak that we’re using on the lower and upper levels. The first few boards that my sweetie looked at had more knots than she expected so we asked if we could open up a few bundles to see how the rest were. When we got there they’d layed out a bunch of it for us. What a great surprise! And it looks great!

 

 

Here the knots filled in with dark and medium dark filler and ready for the first sanding.

First sanding.

 

 

More of Bob’s notes left around in various places. High tech is not always the most effective way to communicate.

 

My older brother (much much older, like a generation older, old enough to be my dad older) caught this just before Hurricane Dorian.

I couldn’t resist pointing out that his fish was 8lbs smaller than the one a little girl caught with a toy fishing rod 🙂 :

Pretty impressive catch from a beach!

Post supports for the boat shed on the north side of the detached garage. These are resting on frost footings that are 6’ deep and isolated from the concrete pad. This way the shed roof will be stable when the pad moves up and down with freeze/thaw cycles every year.